Homestead and Pit Alignments 600m ESE of Melville Grange Lasswade, Midlothian, Scotland, UK

Scheduled Monument Statement of Significance

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The monument is of national importance as a palisaded homestead of the Iron Age which has the potential, through excavation, to enhance considerably our understanding of settlement in prehistory. The site is unusual in having a double palisade, which is a relatively uncommon feature. The pit alignment system is of particular importance because of its apparent completeness; it is very rare for a section of prehistoric field system to survive in lowland arable areas.

Taken together the palisaded homestead and the pit alignment system have the potential to enhance considerably our understanding of prehistoric economic systems and of the development of the prehistoric landscape.

Scheduled Monument Description

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

The monument comprises the remains of a palisaded homestead of the Iron Age, some 2500 years old, delineated by two concentric palisade trenches, enclosing a sub-rectangular area measuring 44m N -S, by 40m transversely, and a series of prehistoric land boundaries marked by alignments of quarry pits, visible on aerial photographs. Within the enclosure are the remains of a single circular house about 16m in diameter. The lines of quarry pits form a regular pattern of fields and it is likely that they are broadly contemporary with the palisaded enclosure.

Two areas are to be scheduled. The northern area includes the palisaded settlement and an area around it in which traces of activities associated with its use will survive and measures 90m N-S by 80m transversely, the southern includes sections of 4 pit alignments and their junctions with each other, the area to be scheduled measuring 70m square.

Scheduled Monument References

© Crown Copyright text courtesy of Historic Environment Scotland, reprinted under the Open Government License.

RCAHMS records the site as NT36NW 10.